A state-led lawsuit challenging the restructuring of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services can proceed, a federal judge ruled this week. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia allege that the restructuring violates the Administrative Procedure Act and the Constitution because the agency has no authority to restructure itself and fire its employees.
"Specifically, plaintiffs allege that defendants failed to provide a reasonable basis in support of dismantling HHS and that they also failed to consider the consequences of their actions," Judge Melissa R. DuBose of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island wrote. "The court rejects defendants' attempt to weigh in on how they believe HHS's reorganization fulfills all existing statutory mandates and instead determines that plaintiffs have plausibly alleged that defendants' actions have violated the Constitution."
The lawsuit was filed last May by the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and Washington, D.C.
In March 2025, the agency said that as part of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Make America Health initiative, it would consolidate 28 agencies into 15, close half of its 10 offices and terminate 10,000 employees.
"In its first three months, this administration systematically deprived HHS of the resources necessary to do its job," the plaintiffs wrote. "As a result, factories were shut down, labs stopped testing for infectious diseases and partnerships were suspended," adding that the FDA missed a vaccine application deadline and canceled a key test for the bird flu virus.
Plaintiffs also said the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products no longer was completing compliance checks to ensure the products aren't sold to minors and that the CDC's work on HIV, hepatitis, STD and tuberculosis prevention had been halted. "The states are unable to access previously available funds, guidance, research, screenings, compliance oversight, data and, importantly, the expertise and guidance on which they have long relied," the lawsuit said.
Last July, Dubose issued aa preliminary injunction to stop the changes. "The executive branch does not have the authority to order, organize or implement wholesale changes to the structure and function of the agencies created by Congress," she wrote at the time.
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